I’m a used-to-be, going-to-be pianist, like Sarah, the protagonist in my book. Even though I didn’t take to the concert stage after studying music, I have integrated music throughout my career as a culture journalist and now as a novelist. I interviewed young bands as a radio host, presented German pop music as a TV host, spoke with A-level conductors as an online journalist, and have written two books about musicians who’ve had to rethink their life paths. Now as mom to three young children, including twins, I am known to sing either Schumann’s Dichterliebe or The Itsy Bitsy Spider too loudly during bathtime.
As mom to three preschoolers, I read more kids’ books than grown-up ones. This gem by Amanda Gorman and Loren Long is a particularly powerful favorite of ours. The lyrical verse, an anthem for change, is empowering while not downplaying social challenges as a boy and girl go through town helping those in need, showing tolerance to skeptics, and drumming up a diverse band. It is not music itself that brings about change, but you and me.
A lyrical picture book debut from #1 New York Times bestselling author and presidential inaugural poet Amanda Gorman and #1 New York Times bestselling illustrator Loren Long
"I can hear change humming In its loudest, proudest song. I don't fear change coming, And so I sing along."
In this stirring, much-anticipated picture book by presidential inaugural poet and activist Amanda Gorman, anything is possible when our voices join together. As a young girl leads a cast of characters on a musical journey, they learn that they have the power to make changes—big or small—in the world, in their communities, and…
I am a children’s book author who is awed by the ocean and the creatures that dwell in its depths. I love writing for kids because they’re unabashedly eager, enthusiastic, and curious! To write this book, I dove deep into researching information about the ocean. The more I learned, the more I wanted to know. I kept thinking, kids will love these fascinating facts and they’ll want to learn more. The wonderful books on this list tell amazing tales, take kids on adventures, and turn dry facts into a deluge of fun. These nonfiction stories offer kids opportunities to become immersed in our awesome ocean!
I thoroughly enjoyed this book and believe young readers will, too!
It traces billions of years of ocean history from “when the Earth was young and new…so hot, rock melted and boiled,” through millennia of marvelous creatures, to the present day with children exploring the shore. In eminently readable rhyme, it conveys an impressive amount of information in an interesting and accessible way.
One of the best parts of the books is in the back: an ingeniously illustrated timeline. Illustrations are dynamic and dramatic, some literally exploding with color and action. They are a joy to look at and will certainly help kiddos understand the science concepts presented.
The New York Public Library Best Books for Kids List (2023)
A lyrical, spectacular history of the ocean—from its dramatic evolutionary past to its marvelously biodiverse present.
“For millions of years these first bits of life Became more, and then more, and then more.”
Long, long ago, when the Earth was young and new, the world was a fiery place. Volcanoes exploded from deep down below, and steamy, hot clouds rose up high. Rain poured down for thousands of years, filling the world’s very first oceans. There the teeniest stirrings of life began. Earth’s creatures grew bigger and bigger, evolving…
When I studied Shakespeare’s works as an undergraduate, I became intrigued by the questions of why and how we got to the point where Shakespeare’s name is recognised all over the world, his plays are quoted in everyday conversation, and his works are central to every English Literature course. I’ve pursued these questions in my academic research, where I look at the history of Shakespeare in performance, but also at how these performances are remembered in souvenirs, pictures, and objects.
If Young’s focus on just one play seemed hyper-specific, this book takes it a step further by looking at the afterlife of a single character from Hamlet. Deanne Williams and Kaara L. Peterson have brought together chapters looking at Ophelia in painting, photography, film, stage design, and even on social media. The international group of authors looks at Ophelia from different perspectives and demonstrates her connections with the history of women’s physical and mental health. The striking photograph on the cover – Gregory Crewdson’s Untitled (Ophelia) – is a key example of the collection’s scope: it restages a famous nineteenth-century painting of the drowning Ophelia, but sets it in a modern living room.
This collection of new essays is the first to explore the rich afterlife of one of Shakespeare's most recognizable characters. With contributions from an international group of established and emerging scholars, The Afterlife of Ophelia moves beyond the confines of existing scholarship and forges new lines of inquiry beyond Shakespeare studies.
I am an award-winning author of picture books and early readers. I have set my stories in many kinds of locations, including a haunted house, an Eastern European shtetl, an English Renaissance village, and a working cattle ranch. ForWake Up, City, I turned to the setting I know best, the city. I drew on memories of walking to kindergarten in early morning Brooklyn. This book is my love song to cities everywhere. As a lifelong city dweller, I worry about the impact of urban spread on the planet, but I feel hopeful, too, because many cities are becoming more nature and wildlife-friendly. The books I'm excited to share celebrate city wildlife.
A unique and artful blend of poetry, science, and activism, this picture book shows how city dwellers can intervene so that nature can work her magic.
In Oslo, Norway: citizens create a honeybee highway that stretches from one side of the city to the other, offering flowerpots, resting spots, bee boxes, and beehives—even water fountains—every eight hundred feet.
In the Bronx, New York: a community rallies to clean their river and cheers at the return of the long-lost beaver population.
In Busselton, Australia: people make a rope bridge that swings high above speeding cars, creating a safe path for tree-hopping possums and squirrels alike.
Through a mix of lyrical poems, real-life success stories, and bouquet-bright artwork, The City Sings Green explores the environmental impact of humans and showcases the many ways that we can rewild cities across the globe. Together, we can welcome nature back!
The City Sings Green & Other Poems About Welcoming Wildlife
A unique and artful blend of poetry, science, and activism, this picture book shows how city dwellers can intervene so that nature can work her magic. Perfect for fans of The Curious Garden and Harlem Grown.
In Oslo, Norway: citizens create a honey-bee highway that stretches from one side of the city to the other, offering flowerpots, resting spots, bee boxes and beehives-even water fountains-every 800 feet.
In the Bronx, New York: a community rallies to clean their river and cheers at the return of the long-lost beaver population.
In Busselton, Australia: people make a rope bridge that swings high…
I’ve been writing poems since an inspirational period of study in Stirling in my twenties, when I did a lot of hill walking in the Scottish Highlands. For me, poetry that doesn’t move you, that doesn’t make you feel, is just words on a page. I love poems that make you shiver as they incongruously bear the full load of life’s mystery. I like all kinds of poetry but have a special place reserved for nature poems, poems that find the heart and soul in the landscape, rivers, and wildlife.
Alice Oswald is one of our best living poets, renowned for her nature poetry and particularly her long poem about the River Dart in Somerset. I love this first collection, full of heart-stopping attention to detail and transcendental shiver. She follows very much in the tradition of our great poets writing about nature. Try the poem "Mountains" for a Wordsworthian sense of a hidden, almost pantheistic presence in the world.
This is Alice Oswald's first book of poems. More confident and achieved than many first collections, it shows her writing in an already distinct voice. The poems are intensely musical: she recites them from memory. Influenced by the rhythms of Hopkins, they speak passionately of nature and love. They have a religious sense of mystery, and try to express the intangible in marvellously vivid language. A long poem, `The Wise Men of Gotham', which makes up the second part of the book, is, by contrast, a version of the folk-legend about the three men who went to sea in a…
As a poet and a novelist, I'm fascinated by the places where these two genres meet, undo each other, and create something new again. That sounds a lot like what love can do, and whenever I read a long poem that achieves a unique aesthetic unity, I feel the writer has found a new way to love the world, to love the reader. And, as usual, both the world and the reader are challenged by that love—to grow.
When I worked at the Academy of American Poets many years ago, I found a record of Stanford’s submission to the Walt Whitman Award. The Editors told him his submission could not be accepted because it exceeded the page limit—by about 500 pages.
The poem he submitted was The Battlefield Where the Moon Says I Love You, and if you’re interested in archetypal imagery that will shatter your heart and put it back together again differently, entirely differently, this wild ride is for you.
Poetry. Frank Stanford was called by Pulitzer Prize-winning writer Alan Dugan a brilliant poet, ample in his work, like Whitman. He was the founder of Lost Roads Publishers and the author of a number of important works, among them the epic THE BATTLEFIELD WHERE THE MOON SAYS I LOVE YOU, reprinted by Lost Roads under the editorship of Forrest Gander and C.D. Wright. Frank Stanford said his purpose in his writing and with his press was to 'reclaim the landscape of American poetry' - The Arkansas Times. Stanford ended his own life in 1978 when he was 29. The reprinting…
I come from the Dusun hilltribes of Indigenous Borneo. My mountain is Kinabalu, and my river is Kiulu. My upbringing gives me a new way to talk about the world. I have participated in ongoing rituals, witnessed the loss of once-abundant wilderness, and shared in stories that are filled with ancient wisdom. My Elders’ knowledge about the land, sea, and sky is etched in my memory, grounding me to cultural roots and prompting reflection on life’s essential questions. In my travels, I have found that these universal questions intersect with the stories and experiences of Indigenous communities worldwide. This worldview urges me to not let these stories fade.
Poetry like this is crucial to telling the other side of the story. It’s a counternarrative, and that’s why Oodgeroo’s work has shaped my thinking and experiences in life-affirming ways.
Oodgeroo sees her work as an extension of the songkeeping and oral storytelling so intrinsic to Indigenous social life and survival. Her poems are not simply about a bygone past, as every line is relevant today (but hush, you mustn’t say so, Oodgeroo teases). That’s why I treasure her wit and writing – they give me life, a lifeline to a reality often denied us in Western thought.
It is written with so much beauty, elegance, and hope. Full of love for her people and full of grace, passion, and rage. Because there is so much to rage about (but that is another story)…
Oodgeroo’s writing has a unique place in Australian literature. When her poetry was first published in the 1960s, Kath Walker, as she was known then, provided a brave new voice for marginalised Aboriginal Australians. For the first time, an Aboriginal Australian was analysing and judging white Australians as well as her own people. She often made provocative and passionate pleas for justice:
We want hope, not racialism, Brotherhood, not ostracism, Black advance, not white ascendance: Make us equals, not dependants.
This collection of poetry and prose is a reminder of Oodgeroo’s contribution to Indigenous culture and the journey…
This spring Naomi Nye did a reading near me and a friend who knows her took me along. What a night! In the signing line, I got to tell her how much her poems have meant to me.
In a year that’s had its struggles, I’ve turned to poetry. Memorizing poems and attempting to understand them has made me hope writing could be fun and rewarding again.
I loved Voices in the Air for inspiring me, for being so beautiful and yet so accessible. It’s a book for young readers, but it’s one I keep close.
"Nye once again deftly charts the world through verse."-Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A beautifully constructed, thoughtful, and inspiring collection."-School Library Journal (starred review)
Young People's Poet Laureate and National Book Award Finalist Naomi Shihab Nye's uncommon and unforgettable voice offers readers peace, humor, inspiration, and solace. This volume of almost one hundred original poems is a stunning and engaging tribute to the diverse voices past and present that comfort us, compel us, lead us, and give us hope.
"I think the air is full of voices. If we slow down and practice listening, we hear those voices better. They live…
I have created art from an early age. Years later, my studies in civil engineering allowed me to combine my love for the arts with my belief in an orderly world. Meanwhile, reading and writing have always been my favorite pursuits. While collaborating as an editor with other authors, assisting them in their writing endeavors, in 2014, I wrote and published my first book. Sharing my writing on Instagram gave birth to the idea of my first poetry book, something like, published in 2018. Since then, two more poetry collections have been published: A TriAngle in 2019 and something like in reverse in 2020.
Women are misunderstood. I’ve heard it many times, so have you. Fewer things are more frustrating than voicing concerns and not truly being heard. Or trying to express yourself, but not finding the right words.
“HER” is collection of poems that has become an inspiration for many women and a guide for many men. Women are praising this book because EVERY woman can see a reflection of herself and her heart on these pages. Originally written from the perspective of a man trying to help other men get a clue, this short and simple read has become a go-to for…
I've spent decades teaching art to preschool and elementary school-aged kids in New York, California, Arizona, and here in Mexico where I live now. Children’s minds make connections that adults rarely do, especially in their art. Watching their imaginations at work have helped me keep my mind fresh when it comes to my own writing and art. Stories and books like these in my list connect to a child’s sense of wonder. Something that so many people lose as the world wears them down. I’m thrilled to share authors and artists here who have held onto that magic and I look forward to more books from all of them.
This book captures the joy and wonder of being a child. The little girl becomes fascinated by the giant muddy puddle, that becomes so much more in her mind. The illustrations add to this book perfectly, and are brightly colored and rich in detail. Told in verse it tells such an imaginative story that every child can relate to.
My Muddy Puddle is a children's rhyming book that follows a child's love of playing in muddy puddles. When the rain dries up, the puddles go away, and there's nothing else she wants to do. Using basic language, repetition, sight words, and beautiful illustrations, My Muddy Puddle is perfect for shared reading with emergent readers.
I can’t guess how many great poems I have committed to memory. In waiting rooms, or in the checkout line, I recite them to myself. In this way, poetry helps me not only understand the world we live in, but live in it without going crazy. And while I love all poetry, I’ve always found that poetry in traditional forms—with meter and rhyme—is easier to remember. That’s one reason why I’ve always been drawn to formal verse. In my own poetry, I strive to uphold that tradition, while inventing new forms that spring organically from the subject at hand. I trust these books will demonstrate I’m not alone.
There was a time in our lives when we all loved poetry; this book will remind you why.
Stallings is the standard-bearer for new formalist poetry, which often looks to classical Greek myths for inspiration. I love the way she recasts familiar myths in a way that elucidates our modern condition. As with her other books, I was impressed—awed—by her ability to breathe new life into traditional forms and devise entirely new forms.
A prime example is “Three Poems for Psyche,” which veer(s) toward a contemplation of motherhood while recasting themes of domestic strife and time’s impassivity. I was floored by the first poem—essentially a palindrome, with each line of the first stanza repeated in the second—in reverse.
I love when poetry does things that prose simply cannot do, and you can rely on Stallings to do exactly that. The end words in “Alice in the Looking Glass,” for example,…
A. E. Stallings has established herself as one of the best American poets of her generation. In addition to a lively dialogue with both the contemporary and ancient culture of her adopted homeland, Greece, this new collection features poems that, in her inimitable voice, address the joys and anxieties of marriage and motherhood. This collection builds on previous accomplishments with some longer poems and sequences of greater philosophical scope, such as "On Visiting a Borrowed Country House in Arcadia." Stallings possesses the rare ability to craft precise poems that pulsate with deeply felt emotion. Like the olives of the title,…
